‘Baby bishops’ get a crash course in the realities of the Church

VATICAN CITY
Crux

Inés San Martín
September 18, 2016
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

ROME-During the last week, a group of over 150 bishops who were appointed by Pope Francis during the past year were in Rome to participate in what some have dubbed the “baby bishops’ boot camp.”

As is always the case for this yearly appointment, which began in 2001, the lessons were kept private. This is due mostly for two reasons: Some are dubbed of little interest to the general public, while others will potentially be collected in a book, as was last year’s case.

Yet many social media savvy prelates have been sharing tidbits on what went on in Rome from Sept. 10-18. …

He urged bishops not to get caught up in a “game of numbers” with vocations, and to instead focus on forming high-quality, mature priests, who are not “prey to their whims and slaves of their fragility, but free to embrace what God asks of them.”

Francis also warned the new bishops against using their office to be self-serving, urging them to use it instead to share the holiness, truth and love of God.

“The world is tired of lying spellbinders and, allow me to say, ‘trendy’ priests or bishops. The people sniff them out – they have God’s sense of smell – and they walk away when they recognize narcissists, manipulators, defenders of their own causes, auctioneers of vain crusades,” he said. …

One point that emerged clearly was the desire for stronger presentations on the fight against clerical sexual abuse, and the Church’s responsibility on protecting minors. Given what a cancer this issue has been for the Catholic Church, the Vatican this time attempted to give the bishops a state-of-the-art presentation on best practices in terms of preventing such meltdowns in the future.

For this edition, the speakers were members of the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors, including Boston’s Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, who heads the commission, and Irish lay woman Marie Collins, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse.

Also on this topic, the baby bishops heard from the Vatican’s former sex-crimes prosecutor, Archbishop Charles Scicluna, currently in Malta.

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